Clinical and Translational Research
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Jun 6, 2022; 10(16): 5165-5184
Published online Jun 6, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i16.5165
Circulating miR-627-5p and miR-199a-5p are promising diagnostic biomarkers of colorectal neoplasia
Dong-Yan Zhao, Lei Zhou, Teng-Fei Yin, Yuan-Chen Zhou, Ge-Yu-Jia Zhou, Qian-Qian Wang, Shu-Kun Yao
Dong-Yan Zhao, Ge-Yu-Jia Zhou, Shu-Kun Yao, Graduate school, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Dong-Yan Zhao, Ge-Yu-Jia Zhou, Shu-Kun Yao, Department of Gastroenterology, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing 100029, China
Lei Zhou, Department of General Surgery, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing 100029, China
Teng-Fei Yin, Yuan-Chen Zhou, Qian-Qian Wang, Graduate school, Peking University China-Japan Friendship School of Clinical Medicine, Beijing 100029, China
Author contributions: Zhao DY designed and performed the study, analyzed the data, and drafted the manuscript; Zhou L and Yin TF collected blood samples from subjects, and provided guidance on experimental procedures; Zhou YC, Zhou GYJ, and Wang QQ collected the clinical data and colorectal samples from the subjects; Yao SK designed the study, supervised the study performance, revised the manuscript, and obtained the funding; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by National Key Development Plan for Precision Medicine Research, No. 2017YFC0910002.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of China-Japan Friendship Hospital (No. 2018-116-K85).
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest to report.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Shu-Kun Yao, PhD, Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Graduate school, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, No. 2 Yinghua East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100029, China. shukunyao@126.com
Received: October 22, 2021
Peer-review started: October 22, 2021
First decision: December 27, 2021
Revised: December 29, 2021
Accepted: March 15, 2022
Article in press: March 15, 2022
Published online: June 6, 2022
Processing time: 223 Days and 8 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Identifying non-invasive tumor biomarkers for the early screening of colorectal cancer (CRC) and advanced adenomas (AAs), appears to be a key measure to reduce cancer incidence and extend the long-term survival of patients through timely recognition and radical surgery of early-onset CRC and precancerous lesions.

Research motivation

Due to the lack of high specificity and sensitivity screening strategies, a number of patients with CRC are diagnosed in advanced stages, which is a bottleneck in decreasing the mortality rate of cancer patients. With the development of genome-sequencing technology, circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) are considered potential non-invasive screening biomarkers of colorectal neoplasms.

Research objectives

To examine the efficiency of circulating miR-627-5p and miR-199a-5p in serum samples to delineate patients with CRC and AA from healthy controls (HCs).

Research methods

Candidate miRNAs were first selected from three public miRNA datasets using bioinformatic analysis methods. An independent set of serum samples from 60 patients with CRC, 60 patients with AA, and 30 HCs was included to detect the diagnostic power of candidate miRNAs. The origin and function of candidate miRNAs were then explored in cancer cell lines and tumor tissues.

Research results

We first identified that circulating miR-627-5p and miR-199a-5p were markedly elevated in patients with colorectal neoplasia and both miRNAs could discriminate CRCs and AAs from the control group with high sensitivity and specificity. The combination of miR-199a-5p and miR-627-5p was a more reliable diagnostic model than conventional tumor markers and each miRNA alone. Additionally, the expression levels of both miRNAs were markedly reduced in postoperative serum samples compared to those in preoperative samples and their expression levels increased with culture time and cell numbers in the culture media of cancer cell lines, which suggested both miRNAs might be tumor-derived.

Research conclusions

Serum miR-672-5p and miR-199a-5p have strong potential as practical and economic non-invasive biomarkers for early screening of colorectal neoplasms.

Research perspectives

Circulating miRNAs in peripheral blood offer new opportunities for promising early detection of colorectal neoplasms.